1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to certain new and useful improvements in cards which are capable of being magnetically coupled to a metallic substrate and, more particularly, to cards which may be prepared in the form of a postcard, a greeting card, or other information bearing card, and which is light in weight and highly effective in use.
2. Brief Description of the Related Art
In recent years, flexible and bendable magnetic films have been commercially available. These films usually include a substrate, such as a cellulose substrate, e.g., a paper substrate, with magnetic material either coated on the substrate or otherwise applied thereto. The substrate with the metallic and magnetically prepared material thereon will then function as a permanent magnetic. One such form flexible magnetic is offered by Magnetic Specialty, Inc. of Murrietta, Ohio.
With the advent of these flexible magnetics, there have been several attempts to produce a card, in the nature of commercially usable cards employing this flexible magnet. There has been one very recent attempt to produce a postcard employing this flexible magnet. The postcard uses two overlying plies with the magnet embedded therebetween. However, the plies are relatively thick so as to be capable of supporting the magnetic film captured therebetween and this interferes with the magnetic coupling to a supporting surface such as a refrigerator. Consequently, only very weak magnetic coupling is obtained. In addition to the foregoing, the device uses a rather large block of the magnetic film thereby substantially increasing the weight of the card. As a result, the card cannot be used as a postcard at standard postcard mail rates, and when so used, a much higher amount of postage is required.
For many years, people have attached notes, paper announcements and the like to refrigerators as a type of reminder. The same holds true with calendars and the like. Normally, these cards, calendars and other substrates are secured to the refrigerator by permanent magnets which are used for this purpose. In fact, many novelty stores offer magnets for attachment of substrates to a refrigerator. It would be desirable to provide a postcard which could be readily and easily secured to a refrigerator without the need of an external magnet for attaching same. This postcard could contain information, as for example, a health professional appointment or the like. However, it is imperative that any such postcard be capable of being mailed at low postcard mail rates in any country of use. Otherwise, the much higher cost of mailing may render the use of the postcard to be prohibitive.
It would also be desirable to use these flexible magnets in other forms of cards, as hereinafter described, so that the cards could also be mounted on a metallic wall. However, light weight is a paramount requirement and, moreover, low cost is also equally critical. There has been a need for a card of this type for some period of time, although none have been available or proposed.